The present invention concerns the preparation and application of artificial anti-idiotypic antibodies obtained by molecular imprinting.
It is known from Nature that antibodies can in their turn give rise to anti-antibodies. Such anti-antibodies or anti-idiotypic antibodies have been investigated widely [1]. The combining site of an anti-idiotypic antibody may display structural features which may be the xe2x80x9cinternal imagexe2x80x9d of the original antigen (the previous antibody). Attempts have also been described lately of producing monoclonal anti-idiotypic antibodies being functional internal images of enzyme active sites leading in one case to the formation of a catalytic antibody with cholinesterase activity [2]. This was carried out by allowing an antibody raised against an enzyme, i.e. cholinesterase, to be injected resulting in the aforementioned anti-anti-bodies.
A more presently developed technique, that of molecular imprinting, is a major element for the here described invention [3, 4]. It is the name given to a process for preparing polymers that are selective for a particular compound (the print molecule). The technique involves: (1) prearranging the print molecule and the monomers and allowing complementary interactions (non-covalent or reversible covalent) to develop; (2) polymerising around the print molecule-monomer complex; and (3) removing the print molecule from the polymer by extraction (FIG. 1). Polymerisation thus preserves the complementarity to the print molecule and the polymer will selectively adsorb the print molecule subsequently. The technique has also been referred to as xe2x80x9chost-guestxe2x80x9d polymerisation or template polymerisation.